Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be pissed off that strangers assume I'm racist?

199 replies

tallwivglasses · 31/12/2010 11:37

I need a new porch (about £3,500-worth of work Sad ) and a builder came and looked at it this morning.

As some of the wood on next door's adjoining porch is rotting, he asked me if the neighbours would be amenable to paying for the repair of their side. I replied it was a rented house and the landlord had ignored me in the past but wasn't too bad. 'Ah', he sneered, 'Indian, Asian by any chance?'

I replied 'Yes, but I'm not racist and I don't employ racists. Goodbye'.

So he lost the work. Idiot. It's the same with a lot of taxi drivers - harder to escape from those unfortunately but they don't get a tip.

Why do people automatically assume I'm going to agree with their hateful, bigotted views?

OP posts:
Blu · 01/01/2011 12:12

There is a big, and cricial difference, between looking at a general trend and then assigining it's details to each and every individual.

If you could always identify an individual circumstance from a generalisation, you could tell someone worried about test results 'the majority of people who have this test do not have cancer. therefore you don't'.

Fatuous logic.

kelway · 01/01/2011 12:13

the governing body of this country is pretty much ruled by the left and certainly has been for years. if anyone dares say anything out of context they get jumped on. people use the term 'racist' far too easily. if anything sounds even vaguely 'pc' it is automatically dismissed out of hand even if there may well be some truth in it. i live in east london and mix with various people including working class, middle to upper classes and have a mixture of white friends and asian friends. i regularly experience what lefty's dismiss are 'racist' on a regularl basis which never ceases to shock me. i must add that some of this comes out of the mouths of my asian friends, this is the truth, one lady friend in particular makes me laugh as some of the things that come out of her mouth are terrible, she has lived in this country for 30 years. i think that lefty's dismissing immediately anything that goes against the 'pc' vein that is constantly stuffed into us has actually created alot of damage and certainly fuelled more right leaning feelings in the lives of people who actually are not naturally racist.

mycounty · 01/01/2011 12:22

My filipino cleaner says Indian/Asian lalndlords she's rented from don't upkeep their propeties and never mend anything. I can only go on what she reports, having never rented from private landlords.

I do remember some Irish tinkers going to the house next door to wash windows, and them being turned away. As the family is Irish they told me "it was what they did in Ireland, but there they drove them out of town."

TheFeministParent · 01/01/2011 12:24

Women are not a 'culture'. Where I live it is fair to say that Asians mainly drive Nissans and the Chinese all seem to drive Mercedes.

Culture does have an impact on behaviour, why is that such a no no?

mutznutz · 01/01/2011 12:25

Oooh be careful with the word 'Tinker' there...before the PC brigade jump on that one LOL! They're known as travellers now...despite the fact all my family and every other Irish person I know, still calls them Tinkers Wink

Lovecat · 01/01/2011 12:31

I must ask my next door neighbours why they're driving a BMW and a top of the range Merc instead of the Nissans you think they should be using. I'm sure their response will be interesting...

Point perfectly illustrated - lazy, unthinking and reactionary.

kelway · 01/01/2011 12:32

people are so scared of being labelled racist that they are banned from saying anything that can be construed as something insulting. of course within cultures, within any type of groups there are certainly stereotypes. i am part of a 'minority' group and trust me, we have MANY stereotypes, alot of which i actually agree with instead of automatically getting defensive just because they sound insulting :)

mutznutz · 01/01/2011 12:34

To be fair, Feminist didn't say she thought they should be driving anything...it was an observation Smile

The Asian Doctors in my area tend to strongly favour Mercs...does that statement make me racist LOL?

I'm not blind...the carpark reserved for Drs in my local hospital has roughly 70+% Mercs parked in it...and the majority of Docs are Asian Smile

Lovecat · 01/01/2011 12:34

And I'm not coming back to this thread as all the 'pc gorn mad' brigade are jumping in and I have a 40th birthday cake to make.

Not sure what point there was to banning daftpunk, she seems to have spawned a many headed hydra...:(

mutznutz · 01/01/2011 12:37

Who is 'daftpunk'? Someone asked me if I was them early on in this thread. Should I be insulted? Lol

TheFeministParent · 01/01/2011 12:52

Your type Lovecat is foolish, it is that sort of thinking that leads perfectly reasonable people into the hands of the BNP. Go and look up the word racist before you accuse people.

Do you live where I live Lovecat? Only you seem to know the patterns of everyone.

SugarMousePink · 01/01/2011 12:53

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

cinpin · 01/01/2011 13:03

Lenak what a brilliant post, you get the
point across so well.

classydiva you are so right when you say people should be allowede opinios through experience. I expect the builder was glad he did not get the work.

RudeEnglishLady · 01/01/2011 13:17

People just trot this crap out without thinking.

Example: Out for the day with supposedly educated couple (native). Me - your town is great! What a nice place to live. Man - meh.. its okay, as long as you stay out of the 'foreigner ghetto'. Me - Shock Angry Can we go to the English ghetto, I want fish and chips :) . Man - [embarrassed face] cough.

I think he meant the non-white foreigners, the islamic foreigners... the kind of foreigners they don't let in their house. Not 'foreigners' like me Sad Angry

I think he got it that I don't collude with this bollocks and that I will call it.

YankNCock · 01/01/2011 13:32

I said the same thing as the OP on another thread earlier this week

I remember hiring a car once and the girl behind the counter bitching about her boss (the focus of her problem apparently was that he was black). When I said 'oh my husband's parents are from Jamaica' her face just dropped.

He's my XH now, but I never let that stuff go uncommented anymore as current FIL, BIL, and SIL are always coming out with racist shit (less so now after the barney last Christmas).

grimsleeper · 01/01/2011 13:33

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

TheFeministParent · 01/01/2011 13:55

Oh and in certain parts of Bristol you can pretty much guess where the Sikhs live, they have beautiful railings!!

TheRunawayWife · 01/01/2011 14:04

Do you go out dressed from top to toe in a white robe with a pointy hat dragging a burning cross?

TheFeministParent · 01/01/2011 14:13

TRW...WTF? Sikhs around Bristol have a sign of Sikhism on their railings. Jesus Christ.

RACISM is not making observations about one's culture.

My American friends often talk of 'cold' English people....I don't think they're racist.

Lovecat · 01/01/2011 14:20

My 'type'? [Hmm] Hmm just stop digging before you embarrass yourself even more!

I am definitely leaving this thread now, apparently having directly experienced racism means nothing in terms of one's ability to recognise it...

And my comment about my place of work was directed at you, not the OP's builder, but as your arguing style seems to be to ignore those parts you can't answer and throw insults about elsewhere, I'm not surprised you avoided it.

kelway · 01/01/2011 14:22

People in the uk are obsessed with being pc and the risk of offending someone but have taken it too far. from what i have observed this has caused resentment for some and thus contributed to the lack in some areas of successful social cohesion

TheFeministParent · 01/01/2011 14:26

Lovecat......I have no idea what you are talking about.

And you have no idea what 'colour'/'nationality I am.............oh no, did you make an assumption? shame on you.

TheFeministParent · 01/01/2011 14:27

And your type dear is an hysterical person who gets offended on other people's behalf for NO reason.

ElfPantsAtMidnightMass · 01/01/2011 14:28

I really disagree with some of the points people are making - of course it is racist to make an assumption (especially out loud) on somebody relating their race to certain behaviours or characteristics.

It is just as wrong/annoying to "guess" that if you are from China you will refuse to shovel snow off the pavement (or whatever) as it is to guess that because you are a woman, you will squeal and start crying if asked to change a tyre.

What race (or sex) someone is tells you, basically, something about their physical body. It doesn't tell you anything much about their mind, personality, likes/dislikes, ability as a landlord etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc.

mutznutz · 01/01/2011 14:30

TheFeministParent Sat 01-Jan-11 14:13:44
TRW...WTF? Sikhs around Bristol have a sign of Sikhism on their railings. Jesus Christ

Now I don't know much about religion I'll admit...but shouldn't it be a Sikh god and not Jesus himself? Lmao!! Wink x